The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [52]
Beings of fiendish heritage, tieflings possess horns, tails, and wicked tongues. James Wyatt describes tieflings as the ultimate bad boys, not evil so much as “evil curious”—anti-heroes who walk a fine moral line. Tieflings made their appearance in the second edition Planescape rules and later the third edition Monster Manual. Their hooves were changed to normal feet and their horns increased in size in the transition to the fourth edition (Carter 2007:48).
One of my players in my role-playing campaign described his half-demon character thusly:
Sebastian Arnyal ... was a half demon sorcerer/warlock who struggled with his infernal side. He desired to do good and went out of his way to help others. However, while simultaneously trying to do good, he physically evolved with his infernal form becoming more and more obvious. Starting with simple claws and a prehensile tail, he eventually gained wings and relished in his power. Continuing to use it for good while the world saw him as something bad. Of course, due to his very nature he was detached from humanity a bit and did what he thought was right, even if the way about it wasn’t very lawfully minded [Webster 2010].
Nonplayer Character
When it was first conceived, Dungeons & Dragons was largely an abstract simulation, with characters having one set of rules and monsters another. This created a disparity in rules sets, which were sometimes at odds with each other, leading to many interpretations of different rules as dictated by the foe’s or magic’s ability to harm the player. Strangulation, drowning, and asphyxiation from smoke all had different rules for adjudicating, as dictated by a spell or monster’s attack. The third edition standardized the majority of these rules, creating a unified system wherein monsters were treated just like players.
As any Dungeon Master can attest, this simulationist perspective standardizes the game and greatly complicates it. A game master attempting to create a high-level villain is in essence creating a player character; if there are enough diverse personalities in the opposition he may create dozens of unique foes. Each of these characters takes time to create, a complication that didn’t exist in the earliest versions of Dungeons & Dragons. The fourth edition simplified this task by providing bare-bones rules for monsters, categorizing them with special rules to help game masters easily and quickly create opposition without too much effort (Carter 2007:14).
Classes
Gygax defined class as “a defined character type or profession prescribed by the game rules.” Classes serve as a form of shorthand for new players; they incorporate archetypes of fable and mythology and they give players an immediate framework to play the game (Archer 2004:159). Later editions of the Dungeons & Dragons game introduced several new archetypes that were not inspired by Tolkien’s work.
Before we delve into the variety of classes that were introduced through Dungeons & Dragons, multi-classing and dual-classing merit a discussion. Basic Dungeons & Dragons did not prescribe classes to demi-humans. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons allowed different races to advance in other classes.
Humans had the ability to “dual class” by joining a new class. There were certain prerequisites for a human to switch classes. The human character had to have an ability score of over 15 in the prime attributes of the original class and over 17 in the prime attributes of the new class. Although the character could use powers of the original class, doing so meant that the experience points he gained from using those abilities would be forfeited. In other words, the dual-classed character had to commit to his new class by using only the powers of his new profession.